busy busy busy

I can tell it's getting close to recital time. Besides looking at the calendar, I can also tell because of our increased practices. This week, there is a practice nearly every night. Normally I practice Monday and Tuesday evenings. This week, my Monday group, has added practices Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and even a three hour practice on Sunday afternoon again. The following week we will have at least Monday, Wednesday and Saturday (dress rehearsal) practices, if not more. When we cannot practice at Asano (or when I practice on my own) we cannot usually play the drums, so we just use our knees as a substitute. We are practicing so much in this way, I'm actually starting to get bruises or something. This is actually my first concert with Yume Mitai (the Monday night group) so I don't know if they always ratchet up the intensity like this before performances or not. I do know, however, that we are sort of being evaluated by the Asano staff at this recital to decide whether or not we will be able to perform at a May concert, which is a bit of a bigger deal. So the pressure is on to produce a good performance. I'll give more details about the May event once our participation is officially confirmed.
In the meantime, I'll just keep banging away at my bruised knees. And here is a picture of me at the Asano Taiko museum next to a 6 shaku drum (nearly 2 meter diameter) and it costs about 30,000,000 yen. That's about USD 290,000 based on current exchange rates.